They would ask me what actors I saw in the roles. I would tell them, and they’d say “Oh that’s interesting.” And that would be the end of it.
--Elmore Leonard, in 2000, on the extent of his input for Hollywood's adaptation of his novels

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Lori Handeland's "Any Given Doomsday"

Lori Handeland is a Waldenbooks, Bookscan, and USA Today bestselling author as well as a two-time recipient of the Romance Writers of America’s RITA award. She has written over forty novels, novellas and short stories in several genres--historical, contemporary, series and paranormal romance, as well as urban fantasy.

Here she shares her thinking about the cast and director of a cinematic adaptation of Any Given Doomsday:

If my book--Any Given Doomsday--could be made into a movie--or the series--The Phoenix Chronicles--into a series!--I'd love to see Halle Berry in the role of Elizabeth Phoenix.

Liz is described as exotically beautiful, mutli-racial with a great body. (Yeah, makes you want to hate her until you get to know her, then she's just one of the girls.) Halle was fantastic in Monster's Ball and her acting chops would be needed to portray the emotional journey of Liz, which begins with a pretty bad childhood.

I'd choose Christian Bale for Jimmy Sanducci. He'd bring the necessary intensity to the role of Liz's half-vampire childhood friend and sometime lover. Liz and Jimmy have a complicated, conflicted past and present that would require someone of Bale's caliber.

For the tattooed, Navajo skinwalking sorcer Sawyer, Johnny Depp would be perfect. Sawyer is a mystery--is he with them or is he against them? No one knows. Depp has always been fantastic at portraying borderline characters.

I'd like this fantastic cast to be directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who did such a terrific job with the movie Twilight. The adaption from book to film was dazzling.

“Compared to a novel, a film is like an economy pizza where there are no olives, no ham, no anchovies, no mushrooms, and all you’ve got is the dough.”
--Louis de Bernières, author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin